


One of the Lucky Ones

by anamatics



Category: Glee
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Coming Out, F/F, F/M, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-09
Updated: 2012-05-09
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:51:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamatics/pseuds/anamatics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Santana Lopez knows that she's one of the luckiest girls alive. She's known this for all her life, since she was too young to really know what she was saying. A story about what might have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One of the Lucky Ones

1.  
Santana Lopez knows that she's one of the luckiest girls alive. She's known this for all her life, since she was too young to really know what she was saying. When she'd told her father that she couldn't stand to grow a mustache like him, or be tall like him. It just wasn't how she saw herself.

1a.  
She doesn't identify as transgendered because she's one of the lucky ones who have a set of medical professionals for parents that are educated enough to listen to her pleas for help when she's too young to know any better. 

They know when she demands to wear skirts and have her nails painted. When she asks why god hated her and made her a boy. When she tells her grandmother off for making her wear a tie to mass when she wanted to wear the pretty dress she'd seen in the store at Easter.

Interesting kid, the neighbors say when Santana plays with her Barbies in the back yard wearing a sundress and a giant hat. Free spirited.

Her parents have let her hair grow out.

1b.  
For her eighth birthday, her father gave her androgen blockers and a pink bicycle. 

(She's always grateful that he's never questioned her dedication to this idea. He's let her do what she wants, be who she wants to be.)

She begs her father to let her be a girl at school. That will be too complicated, even with the letter from Trisha, her therapist, who agrees that Santana Lopez is completely and irrevocably a girl.

2.  
They find a sympathetic ear in Principal Lisa Armstrong, head of Lima, Ohio's middle school. Santana's parents are tempted to home school their daughter to save her from the horror that is being _different_. They don't at Lisa's insistence. They will transfer Santana into the school to start sixth grade as a girl. She will use the women's bathroom and take androgen blockers. In a year or two, she'll be able to take estrogen as well, to supplement the testosterone that the first set of pills are actively blocking. 

She does not want to be different, but when her mother buys her first training bra and enrolls her in gymnastics classes she realizes that she's always going to be. 

2a.  
She gets good at tucking, at wearing a pair of spandex shorts under her skirts. It's only proper, little girls can hardly be counted to be decent on the best days. It’s uncomfortable and gross and sometimes Santana just wants to reach her hand down there and yank it off because then it won't feel like she's just playing dress ups and pretend all her life.

She dissociates herself from her body and from the appendage she doesn't want growing between her legs.

2b.  
On the first day of sixth grade, Santana Lopez meets Brittany Pierce and everything changes. Her mind is full of questions of fear and of angst. Why is Brittany so special? Why is this so hard?

She cries herself to sleep at night, staring down at her chest that isn't growing in at all. 

She hates waking up in the morning, plagued by hard and uncomfortable feelings between her legs. She can't even make it go away and she runs sobbing to her father.

He takes her hand and leads her into his study, pulling a copy of _Grey's Anatomy_ off the shelf and turning to the section on reproductive organs. 

"When you're old enough to know what you're asking for, Santana, there is a surgery to make it go away." He touches her cheek and brushes away a tear with his thumb. "Until then, you need to take care of it, even if you don't like it. It's not healthy to leave it."

2c.  
Santana Lopez masturbates for the first time at twelve, thinking about nothing in particular and hating every minute of it.

3.  
Brittany finds out when they're in seventh grade. She wanted to know why Santana never went swimming with their friends - instead choosing to keep her shorts on and sit sullenly under the umbrella. 

They're having a sleepover, just the two of them curled up on Santana's bed. It's nice, the sort of thing that Santana always wanted, even if she's not entirely sure that it’s right. She loves Brittany with all of her heart and she can't help herself if every time Brittany smiles at her she feels as though her heart is going to pound its way out of her chest.

"Hey Santana?" Brittany's head is on Santana's chest, her hand resting on Santana's belly. 

Santana turns the page of _Teen Vogue_ and makes a 'yes' noise deep at the back of her throat.

3a.   
(Her voice hasn't started to change and it won't. She's one of the lucky ones.)

3.  
"Why don't you ever come swimming with us? Even Lord Tubbington does."

Santana bites at her lip and swallows everything Ms. Armstrong and her parents have told her and takes Brittany's hand and places it at the juncture of her legs. 

"I can't," she explains as Brittany's hand feels what is different about her. "I was born wrong."

"What do you mean wrong?" Brittany asks.

Santana blows hair out of her eyes. Her breath catches in her throat and she forces herself to say, "I was born a boy."

She squeezes her eyes shut and waits for Brittany's reaction.

"Oh. Okay," Brittany shrugs. She flops back on the bed and doesn't move her hand. It stays there and Santana's all warm in the face just thinking about how Britt isn't moving her hand. 

3b.  
It feels good, and Santana doesn't fight it for once. She rolls over and pressed her lips against Brittany's and they roll around the bed together. The androgen blockers and the estrogen make this so hard, but Santana has to do it. 

She’s found someone who doesn’t care.

She’s one of the lucky ones.

3c.  
They're not safe and it terrifies Santana even though she knows that she's sterile. That all people like her are. Before she started taking estrogen on her thirteenth birthday, her father took her to a place and made her do the thing she hated so much. 

"You're too young to think about this," he explained as she came out of the small room, red-faced and humiliated, "But someday you might want children."

She had never thought that she'd never be able to have them. That she'd never be able to carry a baby in her stomach with the man she loved.

3d.  
(She doesn't think about how it would be amazing if it was Brittany's baby when she falls asleep at night.)

4.  
Santana is pretty sure that Rachel Berry knows what she and Brittany do when they have sleepovers. Rachel Berry has a big goddamn mouth and Santana punches it just for the hell of it one day at the end of eighth grade, just to prove that she can get Rachel to shut up.

"Why..." Rachel's lip is bleeding and Santana is shaking all over. "What did I do?"

Brittany's hand is warm in her own and Santana turns away. "No one can know," she hisses at Rachel.

Rachel pulls her hand away from her mouth, blood dripping from the cut. "Love is love, Santana."

"I know."

5.  
Trisha is getting older, as is Santana. The Friday before the start of her freshman year, Santana's sitting in her office, scowling at the floor. 

"What's eating you?" Trisha asks. She's hardly professional around Santana any more. They've been seeing each other since Santana was seven. She's more an old friend at this point. 

"I have to get surgery to change my gender marker on my driver's license." Santana mutters moodily. "My dad says he's not sure that a GID diagnosis is going to get this cleared by the insurance company."

Her father has a cadillac health care plane, but even still, she’s not sure it’ll be enough. 

Trisha's face falls, and Santana bites at her lip. "It sucks because I _really_ wanted to go out for Cheerios. Without surgery, I can't."

5a.  
Trisha Owens writes a letter explaining her relationship with Santana Lopez to the insurance company. She explains how transgender youth are at high risk of suicide and depression and that catching it early, as they've been lucky enough to do with Santana, is for the best. Their bodies can be made to match how they feel on the inside.

It's touchy feely bullshit, but when Santana's father calls her and is practically crying he's so happy, Trisha knows she's done the right thing. She carries more clout than she’d like in Santana Lopez’s life, but she wields the power responsibly.

5b.   
They set the surgery over Christmas break and Santana goes to talk to the Cheerios coach one Wednesday after school in September. 

She has Trisha's letter in her hands, as well as a recording of herself and Brittany at their last gymnastics competition in eighth grade. 

"What can I do for you?" The blonde woman is practically sneering. "I don't take freshman."

"You took Quinn Fabray." Santana sticks out her lip and tries not to think about how _Lucy_ (who went by Quinn) is one of two freshmen on the squad. The other is Brittany, because she's tall and can dance better than the seniors.

"And your point? I don't need an ethnic mess like you messing up my perfect squad," Santana decides that she likes this woman a lot, she's powerful and aggressive and totally who Santana can see herself growing up to be.

Santana bites her lip and hands her the letter that Trisha's written. "I want to be a Cheerio, coach. I just... I have a problem."

Coach Sylvester raises her eyebrows and pulls her glasses out of her desk drawer. "I see you're a mess in more ways than one, Lopez." She gives Santana a small smile, "If it helps, I would never have known."

5b(1).  
Thing is, no one really knows other than Brittany, the school nurse, her parents and Trisha. Santana doesn't mind people knowing, once everything's all in order and she's finally correct physically. They just can't know _yet_. She's not who she wants to be, yet.

5c.  
The first boy Santana's ever really liked is Noah Puckerman, but she realizes pretty quickly that she just likes how he's a badass like she is. She thinks she might be gay and it terrifies her.

Coach has let her onto the Cheerios, with explicit instructions to tuck her shit and wear two pairs of extra-small spanks. Santana does it without complaint. She can't be a flyer, but she's good at catching and she's okay with being in the background until her surgery. 

She likes making out with Puck because he makes her feel like she's beautiful and it's just plain awesome. Brittany doesn't really like that Santana's splitting her time between the two of them. She's terrified that Puck will hurt Santana if he ever finds out.

5c(1).  
Santana hasn't really thought about what she'll do, if Puck does find out. She's read _far_ too many stories of girls who get caught, who get beaten or killed because they 'tricked' straight guys into wanting to be with them.

Puck's been to second base with her too-small boobs and has touched her ass a few times. Santana's given him a hand job. He'd wanted to reciprocate afterwards but she'd sat him down and told him that she just wasn't ready.

"You're fine when it's Brittany," Puck scowls.

Santana laughs and pulls a cigarette out of the pack in her purse. Smoking is very badass but really not a good idea on her hormone regimen. "That's because Brittany gets it."

5c(2).  
She tells Noah when his lips are around her nipple and she's gasping for breath. Her junk is killing her and she hates it so much at that moment. She wants him in her, wants to know what it feels like.  
It is October fifth. She's got two months before she'll be herself finally. And years more therapy. 

"I need to tell you something," she grinds out. "And I need you to stop."

"What?" He asks. He's hard against her leg and she hates that she's getting there, squished as her shit is in too-small spanks. 

She gets up and stands by the door, distance is good, in case he freaks out. He won't try anything if she can get away fast enough. "I... I-" the words are trapped in her throat and she can't hardly breathe for the fear of what might happen, what he might _do._

"Jesus Lopez, just spit it out," Puck growls, flopped on his back, his hand on his crotch. 

"I'm not right," she says eventually. She clenches her hands in front of her. "When I was born I wasn't right."

"Oh you mean the fact that you've got a dick?" Puck rolls his eyes and props himself up on his elbows. She looks at him wide-eyed and he gives her a sheepish smile. "It was a little obvious when you started to get turned on there, Santana."

"You're not..." She doesn't know what she's trying to say, but Puck's on his feet and is kissing her, pulling her back towards the bed. 

"I wouldn't be here if you weren't a hot momma, okay?" 

5c(3).  
Santana Lopez loses her virginity that night and decides that Noah Puckerman is one of the greatest guys she knows.

6.  
Of all the people who come to see her after her surgery, Coach Sylvester and Rachel Berry are the weirdest by far. Brittany's there almost constantly, and Quinn comes a few times. 

Quinn doesn't know but Santana's trying to figure out a way to tell her. Quinn's one of her best friends (even if she's totally a pressed lemon and no fun at all). 

6a.   
"I wish you'd told me you were trans," Rachel Berry says, looking down at her hands and staring at Santana.

Santana is high as a kite on painkillers and feeling like a million bucks so she just smiles and nods. Rachel isn’t even annoying right now. She kind of likes it. "I didn't realize you'd figured it out."

"It wasn't hard, Santana." Rachel Berry is far too smart for her own good, which scares Santana, as all her secrets are out in the open under those brown eyes that see far more than they should. "At first I thought you were gay - and I still do, by the way - but then I realized that you obviously have a huge level of body discomfort and dysphoria that I've only ever really seen when talking to one of my father's transgender friends, Madeline."

"Berry," Santana sighs and flops back on her pillows, "I don't want people to know."

She hates that _Rachel Berry_ of all goddamn people is educated enough to know the words she has to say, the buzzwords and the language that is so deeply personal to a transgendered woman. She hates that Rachel Berry has left her a copy of _Whipping Girl_ on her bedside table (as if Santana hasn’t already read it) and she hates how Rachel _understands_. This would be so much easier if she didn’t.

"Understandable, you're taking a huge risk just by my being here, but I don't believe in outing." 

Rachel leaves the cookies that she's made and goes home. Santana exhales quietly, it would have been nice to have Berry as a friend, had things turned out differently.

6b.  
Coach Sylvester brings a magazine with her and sits by Santana's bedside is stony silence as Santana comes off the hardcore drugs and back down to simple Advil. It sucks, but she can move her legs some now and she's actually taken a look at her new junk and she wants to dance for joy.

And then have lots and lots of sex.

"S, you're a great cheerleader. I want you to be a flier next season," Coach Sylvester doesn't look at her when she says it, appearing engrossed in her magazine. "I respect you greatly for coming into my office and demanding that I treat you the same as all the other girls."

Santana smiles weakly at her coach, "Thank you for understanding that I am a girl."

7.  
Santana has sex with Brittany first, it seems only fair. Britt's eager and it feels so damn good to have her touch and kiss and just be _there_ , inside. The way it's supposed to feel. Santana bites her lip and tries not to come too soon, but she's a goddamn fucking boy or some shit and can't help herself. By the time Brittany is finished with her, Santana's come four times to Brittany's one, and Santana's smug as fuck about the whole thing. 

"Britt," she breathes when they fall back, flushed and happy on her bed. "I think I love you."

Brittany smiles serenely and presses her lips to Santana's temple. "I think I love you too."

7a.  
Being in love with Brittany presents a slew of problems that Santana wasn't aware that she'd be having. She's whipped, which sucks. Quinn teases her about it constantly and Santana just has to bow her head and not say anything. Quinn has more dirt on her than anyone and fuck if she's going to let that bitch get away with using any of it. 

Trisha listens to Santana ramble about how she's afraid to be gay, afraid that her parents will reject her when she could have just as easily been straight and avoided all this shit. 

"You do realize your parents are some of the most loving, accepting people I have ever met, don't you?"  
She wishes she could know why she was so scared.

7b.  
With her surgery complete, Santana can actually earn the reputation she's carefully cultivated with well-timed make-out sessions and general badassery. She sleeps around, with Puck, with other boys. It's so completely and utterly freeing to know that she can do it. That it's finally right. 

Puck is ecstatic the first time she rolls up after her surgery. She's been fine for weeks now, messing around with Brittany, relearning how to feel pleasure and how to have sex that doesn't make her want to gag. Brittany was gentle, but she wants to try _fucking_ now. 

She's still not sure if she's gay or just bi. More likely than not she's just Noah-sexual, as he's one of the coolest people she's ever known. She sort of loves him.

He isn't gentle, and they're having sex. Like real sex. Not sex where Santana screws up her eyes and tries to pretend that she's getting oral and not head from a guy. 

Afterwards, he peels off the condom and she tells him she can't get pregnant. 

"Awesome," he says, and kisses her. "So no kids?"

"Nope," Santana sighs and flops back. "Unless you want to find me a nice set of ovaries."

"I've got some growing out back," Puck grins, but his eyes are serious. "I'm sorry." He puts his arm around her shoulders and she leans into him. He smells like sweat and man and Santana knows that if she were to go for a run right now, she’d smell exactly the same.

She sometimes hates that even after her surgery, her body is still betraying her.

"I'd rather be right and childless then have children and hate myself."

7c.  
Puck gets Quinn pregnant and Santana hates everything.

8.  
The events surrounding the start of Santana's sophomore year are complicated to say the least. Mr. Schue takes over glee club, Rachel Berry finally finds a leading man in Quinn's tree of a boyfriend, Quinn forces them to join Glee club.

8a.   
"Can you sing?" Quinn's doing advanced algebra homework, her book propped up against Santana's leg as she does out problems. Her math is as quick and as good as Santana's, only Santana's using a calculator. 

The girl is too smart and Santana just rolls her eyes and shrugs. “I’m hot.”

Quinn blinks at her, “What does that have to do with singing?”

Santana brushes her hair behind her ear and props her chin on her palm. “No one in glee club is hot. They needs some sex appeal.”

“And you’re gunna provide it?” Quinn’s got that goddamn eyebrow up like Santana just suggested they make out or something. For the life of her, Santana Lopez does not understand Quinn Fabray.

“Obviously.”

8b.  
Brittany is ecstatic. She and Rachel have been in the same dance classes for years and have always been secretly close. Being in glee to Brittany means that she doesn’t have to pretend to hate Rachel just to appease Quinn’s adolescent vendetta against her; Santana just thinks that the whole thing is adorable.

They sing and dance and act like stage props for the war that’s secretly going on between Quinn and Rachel over Finn. 

8b(1).  
And then babygate happens and holy fuck Santana wants to kill Quinn, to murder Puck and holy shit kick Finn Hudson in the balls because Jesus fucking Christ he’s a goddamn moron. 

Puck fucked up.

And Quinn let him fuck her up.

And Santana just wants her sex life to go back to normal, but now Puck’s with Quinn and she’s full of a blind rage when she finds herself with a fist-full of Quinn’s cheerio uniform, slamming her up against the lockers.

“You goddamn tranny get off me!” They’re in a crowded hallway and Santana freezes and Quinn shoves her up against the lockers with a vindictive smile on her face. “Leave,” she hisses, “Or I will out you so fast you will be beaten within an inch of your queer little life by the scum of this Podunk town.”

8b(2).  
Santana sobs into Brittany’s arms for hours after that. Brittany tells her that most of the school thinks that Quinn just got creative with her insults, no one actually thinks that she’s a special unicorn. 

Which is okay, but fuck, Quinn knows and could out her at any possible moment. Quinn’s taken away her goddamn best friend and her lover and it _hurts_.

She’s never cried easily, even after she started estrogen, but she sobs into Brittany’s shoulder.

8c.  
Quinn apologizes after Finn ruins her life and gets her kicked out of her house and Santana won’t hear a word of it. 

“What you did was a _hate crime_ , Q.” 

She’s got her arms folded tight across her chest and is smoking one of the cigarettes that Noah bought her on his last beer run. She’s pissed off and Quinn is looking all pregnant (she’s fucking goddamn glowing) and shit and Santana just wants to run to Rachel Berry’s dad and get the ACLU involved. 

She can’t believe Quinn. 

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I want to ask you for it anyway.”

“I’ll think about it,” Santana says and blows smoke in Quinn’s face. 

8c(1).  
She forgives Quinn a few days later when Quinn turns to her after a particularly brutal slushy to the face and comments, “If you came out as gay, I don’t think they’d slushy you.”

Santana cracks her knuckles and leads Quinn into the girls bathroom and helps her change into sweats and a t-shirt. “Damn straight they won’t. I’d go all Lima Heights on they asses.”

Quinn shakes her head and sticks her head under the sink, washing out the worst of the slushy. “I’m sorry,” she adds.

“I know,” Santana says, and pulls the travel-sized bottle of shampoo out of Quinn’s backpack.

8d.  
They win Sectionals but get their asses handed to them by Vocal Adrenaline at Regionals. Quinn has her baby and she gives it to Rachel’s biological mom. It’s all really fucked up.

“I think Quinn might be a unicorn too,” Brittany comments on the bus back to Lima. They’re curled around each other, lamenting their loss but somehow still happy with what they’ve done. Santana knows that they’ll be okay, come back stronger and better than ever next year. She can already see that terrifying gleam in Rachel Berry’s eye. 

Santana bites her tongue and shrugs. She’s not ready to admit that _she’s_ gay yet. She won’t label anyone else. 

Although…

9.  
Santana passes her driver’s test over the summer and has to go to court to officially get her gender marker changed. Her father refuses to let her at least _get_ a license (even if the sex marker is incorrect) so that she can drive Brittany around all summer.

Trisha goes with them. She explains what being transgendered means to the old and wizened judge who is clutching his gavel far too tightly for Santana’s liking. He keeps glancing over at her as though he’s gunna throw it at her. She wants to back away slowly but instead stands her ground, her chin jutting out as she dares him to tell her she’s not a girl.

(And a hot one at that.)

9a.  
She is one of the lucky ones. She lives in a state where she can get that marker changed officially and without a fuss. In some states you have to publish your name change, in others they flat-out refuse to let you do it. 

Her driver’s license is burning a hole in her wallet as she runs down the street towards Brittany’s house. She’s gotta show it off.

She nearly collides with Rachel Berry, all decked out in running clothes and sweaty. Santana manages to dodge around the tiny singer and grabs her arm. 

“Hey Berry, check this out,” she says, pulling her wallet out and shoving the ID into Rachel’s confused face. 

Rachel’s brow furrows and then her face brightens considerably. She glances down at herself and bites at her lip but Santana’s already hugging her. She doesn’t even care that Rachel’s gross from running what must have already been five miles from her house.

“I’m official!” she’s bouncing and she hugs Rachel tight because Rachel fucking gets it even if Santana kind of hates that she does.

Rachel’s smile is dazzling as she brushes Santana’s hair away from her eyes. “I’m so happy for you,” she whispers.

Santana lingers for a moment before she lets go.

In that moment she knows, she’s definitely gay.

9b.  
She begins to plan. On how and when she’ll come out. She’s got it down to a science, or so she thinks. She’s honestly not sure _what_ she wants to do. Brittany is with Artie now and he’s starting to get weird about how much time they spend together. 

In late July, three weeks before Cheerio summer boot camp begins, Santana gets her sixteenth birthday present. The gender marker was enough. She’s now legally female in the eyes of the law, but her tits have never fucking grown in and she sort of hinted that maybe they needed help to her parents. She gets a decent size, not too big, just a little bit bigger than they were naturally. 

Quinn tells Coach Sylvester about it to get back on the Cheerios like the backstabbing bitch that she is. The look of utter disappointment on coach’s face was enough to make Santana want to curl up in a ball and die. The fact that she’s demoted to the bottom of the pyramid and Coach doesn’t start using gendered insults are both blessings in disguise. Santana couldn’t handle that.

9b(1).  
Ms. Holliday asks them to sing together and they have the perfect song all picked out. Santana’s been trying and trying and trying to get the words to come out but they won’t. She’s so fucking scared and she hates that she’s so in love with Brittany. It is the worst thing in the world and it’s consuming her life. 

They sing _Landslide_ , and inside Santana is sobbing, crying, dying. Brittany doesn’t understand that Santana needs her and for the first time in Santana Lopez’s very short life she calls the Trevor Hotline.

9b(2).  
“My name is uh… Santana,” she begins.

“I’m Hans,” The guys says. He sounds decent enough, flamingly gay in a European sort of way. 

“Do I just talk?” 

Hans makes an affirmative noise. 

“I’m trans,” she begins. “Male to female. I had bottom surgery at Christmas last year… I’m one of the lucky ones, I guess. My dad and mom figured it out and they’re both doctors so they weren’t afraid to let me be who I wanted to be.”

“You are one of the lucky ones,” Hans breathes. There’s a shifting sound and then he adds, “Normally we don’t get happy kids calling us.”

“I’m not happy.” 

“Oh.”

“I think I’m gay,” Santana sighs, takes a deep breath and corrects herself. “I am gay. I’m terrified to telling my parents for some fucked up reason and the girl I love won’t goddamn listen to me when I tell her that I love her.”

“Do you have any idea why?”

“Because I told her it wasn’t cheating on her boyfriend if the parts were different, and … I mean I had a brand new vagina to play with…”

9b(3).

Rachel Berry has picked up on the fact that she’s miserable and Santana wants to flush someone’s head down a toilet. Maybe Rachel’s, maybe her own. At this point she’s just fucking depressed and really wants someone to know how she’s feeling.

Also Rachel gives really good hugs and fuck, Santana could use one right now.

9c.  
The second boy that Santana Lopez ever tells about her status (aside from an anonymous guy on a hotline) is Dave Karofsky. It’s more like he finds out by accident. 

“So you… used to be a dude?” He’s blinking stupidly up at her and they’re drinking beer in his bedroom after she kicked his ass in Mario Kart. 

Santana shakes her head, “No, I was always a girl. My body used to be more uh… boyish. When I was like five.”

Dave looks confused. “I thought kids were pretty androgynous.”

“They are, I just happened to have a dick for a while when I didn’t want one.” Santana shrugs and begins to select another race. “I don’t really talk about it.”

“Doesn’t that mean you’re straight?”

“Nope, I’m as gay as you and we can help each other.”

9d.   
They go to prom together and it’s awesome until Jesse St. Dickweed and Finncompetent ruin it. Dave’s a pretty kicking rad dancer and Santana gets to dance a little with Brittany while Artie’s performing. It’s okay.

(It is hilarious when Quinn slaps Rachel and then Rachel drives her home after prom. They’re both goddamn unicorns and Santana is amazed that Britt was, again, correct.)

10.  
Finn Hudson ruins Nationals for them, and Quinn begins to spiral out of control. Brittany is there, holding them both up as they collapse around Quinn, pulling her close and telling her that it’ll be okay. 

10a.  
Rachel isn’t speaking to Finn, but Santana sits across from her on the airplane back to Ohio and leans over and says, “You were right. I am gay.”

Her mouth is open like there’s a paragraph just waiting to come out of it, but all Rachel Berry says is, “Duh.”

Somehow, when she tells Tina and Mercedes the following Tuesday, it comes out easier. She doesn’t tell Mike because Tina will probably tell him, and she asks that Mercedes not tell Kurt just yet. She’s done her fair share of fucking with Kurt and she knows that it’s not entirely fair for her to be the most fabulous gay at McKinley (even though she clearly is).

Brittany comes running up to her and excitedly wraps her arms around Santana’s shocked form just before they’re done with school for the yeah. “I heard you tell Rachel that you’re lebanese.”

Santana nods and relaxes into Brittany, “Because I am.”

“Does this mean we can be girlfriends now?” Brittany’s eyes are wide and excited. She’s full of that joy that Santana loves to see on her so much. Santana wants to say yes, but she hasn’t done the hard thing yet. She can’t be with Britt until she does it. She knows this.

“I have to tell my parents first, Britt.” Brittany’s lips are on her own and Santana’s crying into Brittany’s shoulder. “I’m so scared to tell them, Britt-Britt.”

“You’re the bravest person I know,” Brittany says stubbornly. “I know you can do it.”

10b.  
She doesn’t have a choice when she does it because Finn goddamn Hudson went and fucked it up for her. Coach got involved and it’s just a fucking mess.

Her parents come home that night to be greeted with Santana sitting on the couch trying to pull herself together. They fly to her side because they’re good parents and she lets them hold her. 

“Finn outed me at school today,” she mumbles into her father’s chest.

He goes still. “Why does he know about your status?”

Santana shakes her head, “Not that. He outed me… I’m gay.”

She’s said it, another notch in her fucked up totem pole. The only way it could possibly be worse is if she’s somehow secretly a reincarnated alien or dog or something. She can’t bear looking at her father as he pats her on the head. 

“’m sorry,” she mumbles.

Her father tilts her chin up, “Don’t be.” He says as her mother holds her. “You’re you, my daughter, the girl I love more than life itself.”

“I’m a trifecta of messed up.”

“But you wouldn’t be you if you weren’t.”

10c.  
Rachel sings her ‘I Kissed A Girl’ and Santana wants to give her a lecture about lesbianism being exploited by the mass media and marketed as purely experimentation. But what the hell, it’s a catchy song. So she doesn’t and instead accepts Rachel’s hug before she walks up to Brittany in the crowded hallway of McKinley High School and kisses her.

“Do you wanna go out sometime?”

“Like a date?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure!”

11.  
Santana Lopez is one of the lucky ones.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'ed by Spockette - spurned on by a conversation on transfeminity and wondering how the fuck a confident and awesome character like Santana would feel the need to get a boob job. Thoughts on a fandom that is fairly exploitative of the intersex/trans experience just for porn. Enjoy.


End file.
